have been reading the news articles about a possible Microsoft motion sensitive controller and wonder what teh point of a patent is if they can be copied as soon as one company sees the product being popular.

Bill Gates Denies Wii's Existence
6/4/2007, 10:34am Eastern Time

Bill Gates apparently thinks that Wii is the future of computer hardware and software. But not in so many words.

Speaking with Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the D5 conference, the Microsoft founder described what he saw as the future of input devices for PCs and other electronic media: "And as we get natural input, that will cause a change. … Software is doing vision and so, you know, imagine a game machine where you’re just going to pick up the bat and swing it or the tennis racket and swing it."

To which the moderators replied, "We have one of those," and referred to Wii by name.

Gates, however, insisted that Nintendo's console was not what he was talking about, saying, "No, that’s not it. You can’t pick up your tennis racket. And swing it."

It's possible that those who've played Wii Tennis might think otherwise, however.

I think the thing he was talking about is more like the Eyetoy than the Wiimote anyway.

Yeah. I found that hilarious. I prefer the Wiimote over getting myself a racket, golf club, bowling ball, baseball bat, boxing gloves, car,... LOL Bill Gates.

If the issues the Wiimote caused the stupid populace (With throwing things through their tv screens, into walls, smashing ceiling fans, etc..) weren't bad enough, picture this brilliant idea. Hey I know kids, lets play baseball... indoors!

As someone else stated elsewhere in the net... if you really wanted to play using bats, gloves, balls, rackets, clubs, etc... your ass wouldn't be indoors in the first place.

Next he'll be denying the existance of Macs or Blu-Ray...

Bill Gates: There's no such thing as the console war. It's all in your head. Sony is just a dream, and Nintendo is only a nightmare.

It is possible that you should actualy watch the segment yourself (like say on youtube), and make up your own mind about what he realy meant. You don't need to be spoonfed someone elses opinion about what he was talking about.

I think he was talking about something more like motion capture in the home. And in that case he's right, Wii doesn't do anything even close. Imagine games where you don't need a controller at all - you just stand in front of a camera and your character precisely mimics everything you do. This really is the future.

Nah, that's not the future. The holodeck from Star Trek is where it's at!

 Isn't that a Sony Eyetoy?